CONTENTS
========
2. PREVIEW OF QXP5
3. "POSTSCRIPT PANIC PAGE"
4. NEWSLETTER RESPONSE
5. DEATH NOTICE FOR WHICH PM?
6. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
7. XTENSIONS/PLUGINS/SCRIPTS
8. UTILITIES/UPDATES
9. HINTS
10. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
11. LAST WORD
2. PREVIEW OF QXP5
==================
Those of you in the USA and Canada can get a "sneak preview" of QuarkXPress 5.0 at a series of 2-hour seminars being run by Apple and Quark in the next few months. Many of them are however already listed as "fully booked" on the Quark web site.
Of listed feature advantages, the major ones from a print perspective are that it will "Generate PDF files quickly and easily", that it will "import, and export tables"; and that you can "Use layers throughout your document to help alter information and attributes quickly and easily."
Other features listed are that it will: Create Web pages complete with rollovers, image maps, and hyperlinks; Extract the content of QXP documents and store it in XML; Open any document created in QuarkXPress 2.x or higher; Create hyperlinks that point to Web pages, anchors, and other resources.
Of comments seen in newsgroups, the main criticism seems to be that, like many other page layout programs, QXP is heading towards use for web page production, whereas many users feel the needs of print and web are entirely different and what is needed is a means of repurposing original copy to web or print rather than for converting from one to the other.
Could the answer be a text processor that outputs to XML, with page layout and web production programs using an XML file as their main input?
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Incidentally, Modulo Systems, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who market QPS (the publishing system formerly owned by Quark) is working on the next generation of publishing software. There are some telling pointers in that Modulo is looking "for a few good engineers with skills in ... Mac, Windows, C++, Java, QuarkXtensions, client/server, databases, publishing apps, CORBA and web applications."
3. "POSTSCRIPT PANIC PAGE"
==========================
Laurens Leurs writes: "About a year or year and a half ago, you published a link to my own website, the postscript panic page.
"In the meantime, a lot has happened. I have moved to a new provider and added an entire section on PDF and PDF related problems. A list of popular paper sized was added about 2 months ago and I am now working on a prepress acronym guide. The PostScript section of my site was also updated and now covers about 120 "popular" postscript errors. This new Prepress Panic Page can be found at <http://users.belgacom.net/prepresspanic/>
"I noticed that your number of readers has increased a lot lately so most of them will never have heard of my site. Personally, I would appreciate some good pointers to websites that contain more information on TIFF/IT. More information on how PDF can be used to handle Word, Excel or PowerPoint files in a prepress environment would also be welcome. I think your readers may be interested by <http://www.digitaldocumentspanel.com> which has some solid background information on PDF/X."
We'll try to cover some at least of those points in forthcoming issues of Format. On the DDAP site, look under "Resources" for the PDF/X info. There is a little bit on TIFF/IT in Format 5 at <http://www.worsleypress.com/format/format5.htm>
4. NEWSLETTER RESPONSE
======================
We've had many comments in the past that indicate this newsletter is well read, but we had a chance to check that for ourselves with the mention in Format 39 of our new book (or rather new edition, after 9 years), "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Within a day we had orders from Switzerland, the UK, Japan and the USA. We won't repeat details here (we don't accept ads from anyone else so we won't do it for ourselves either). However, we will mention that there is a lot of free information intended for those producing magazines, newsletters and newspapers on our publication production website at <http://www.worsleypress.com/pubprod/>.
5. DEATH NOTICE FOR WHICH PM?
=============================
There was a flurry on several newsgroups when it was reported that Adobe had announced "the death of PM". As printer Hal Wendt said on the Printshare List: "That's the problem with acronyms. They did announce the death of PM -- except it's PageMill not PageMaker. Adobe announced that GoLive will be their Web Authoring tool and that PageMill will be supported for a while longer, but there will be no updates or upgrades."
So, the "inside info" that is somewhat dated but from reliable sources inside Adobe remains that there is a development team working on PageMaker 7. However, indications are that while it can be expected to work around some of the major bugs (which seem to be worse on new system Macs than on PCs) it will mainly be enhanced in ways that appeal to the less experienced user.
6. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
========================
In Format 39 Tim Hufler asked about the collection of 1000+ PageMaker templates which were marketed by Suzan Reed
Chris Wood suggested that some of these may have become the templates marketed with PM6.5 Plus, but our admittedly cursory investigation suggests they are not (one person commented that Suzan's were "a lot better") -- but the originals have still not some to light.
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Noella Ybarra wrote: "I just found your site, and am impressed with what I see. However, I have PaceMaker 5 for PC. Right now the only way to get a .jpg file into PageMaker 5 is to open the .jpg file in another program, copy it and then paste it into PageMaker. Sometimes this causes a huge file even though the .jpg is small and I worry about the integrity of the .jpg. Is there a patch that will allow me to "place" a .jpg file into PageMaker 5?
We replied: Firstly, we'd warn against cutting-and-pasting JPEG files but there isn't a JPEG filter for PM5. A GIF filter was issued in 1993, after the release of the program, so it may be better to convert the JPEGs to this format. Look for PageMaker for Windows downloadable files in the Support section of the Adobe website.
However, I would suggest converting the files to TIFF and making sure these are linked rather than included in the file. This keeps the file size smaller despite the TIFF format being much larger than either GIF or JPEG.
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Bill Fleming stated: "Pagemaker 6.0, a new re-install, will not access any ppd file other than those present at the time of install. Any other ppds copied into the ppd folder are summarily ignored. When the ppd selection is accessed in the print dialogue box, the only offerings are the Acrobat Distiller, Color General, and General. Even though there are at least 5 or 6 other ppd files in there, the rest are ignored.
We replied: If the ppd file is in PageMaker's own "ppd4" folder, then it would seem the configuration file is not rewriting. In PM6.5 this file is called "Pm65ppd.cnf" and I think it was similar in PM6. Try renaming this file so it is forced to write a new one. If that works then you can delete the old one.
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Kazimierz Leja wrote from Poland with a question we couldn't answer: "Do you know, why InDesign 1.5 has problems with Unicode characters? I work with Windows 2000 pro and try to insert 'Uc' via copy and paste or via place command from Word 2000 document. Some characters are OK, but not all (for example: 00D8, 00C5 don't import properly and don't print of course). Also, when I use font 'Arial Unicode" InD crashes!"
Can anyone help?
7. XTENSIONS/PLUGINS/SCRIPTS
============================
Olav Martin Kvern reported via the InDesign List on an oddness in InDesign that affects scripting -- that InD regards an ampersand as a "character object" rather than as a word, although it regards "I" and "a" as one-letter words. The result, if you try to use a script to replace an ampersand with the word "and" is that it will handle the first "&" correctly, but then put the other replacements where the "&" used to be. The workaround is to script a replacement loop, counting the number of ampersands, and then replacing each in turn, so that each time the "&" found is the first one.
8. UTILITIES/UPDATES
====================
Some useful shareware font utilities on the Fontfreak website <http://www.fontfreak.com/>. These include: The 1.1MB Font Creator font editing program for PC users. The 37kb TT Converter utility that runs on a Mac to convert TT fonts from PC format. The 3MB Printers Apprentice which will install and uninstall T1 and TT fonts for Win95/98 and NT including batch installs and print catalogs and sample sheets. The 730kb Fontz (for Mac) which organises fonts into groupings.
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If you are on a Mac and can't read the Joliett file system that is used by Win9x for reading long filenames, try a freeware utility at <http://www.tempel.org/joliet/>. It will make the Mac able to read the first 31 characters (the limit for filenames on Mac). Size is only 69kb, and it is free for personal use.
Names longer than 31 characters will be truncated, but in quite a smart way, plus, the full name is still shown in the Comment field of the Finder's Information window. Some CD-ROMs might use ISO 9660 Level 3, which allows fragmented files. This is not supported by Apple's File System, and makes those fragmented files unreadable on a Mac. Joliet Volume Access solves this problem, too.
9. HINTS
========
Quark's Passport edition can have problems with tags, including the reimport of tags just exported from the same file. It could be a nationality problem -- some countries use a comma instead of a decimal point, so, when you have any style sheet with a measurement of 9,5 (instead of 9.5) the comma goes into the tags and makes them into gibberish, though the program itself handles them perfectly.
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Beware the "fit to page" option in Acrobat (which can be on by default). It could more correctly be called "fit to print area" so it is quite possible that a page, printing to a PDF of the same page size, will be reduced to fit the print area of the selected printer. This could be 97 or 98 per cent for a laser printer, but could be as low as 90% on some inkjets because of their larger unprintable bottom margin.
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InDesign doesn't have an inbuilt story editor, but you can use the original program which created the file. Place a Word file into InDesign. In the links palette (with the cursor inserted in the text or the frame selected), select "edit original" from the fly-out menu and Word pops up. Edit the text in Word, save and close. Update the link in InDesign.
This can even be used with tagged text files -- in which case, on a PC, Notepad pops up with the file open and you have to exit that and select "update link" within InD. However, modificatins made since placing the file previously will be lost. We are told that several companies with text editors are in the process of creating versions to work with InDesign.
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There's a guide to the tools available to Acrobat 4.x (Win & Mac) and Acrobat Reader 4.x (Win & Mac) users, including the shortcut keys. at <http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=759>
Also available at the Planet PDF website is a 22-page PDF booklet created by Adobe Systems covering a range of software applications -- including specific tips -- that are commonly used to produce files that can be easily converted to PDF documents. "Adobe Acrobat 4.0 Tips for Business Professionals" is at <http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=771>. It may even answer Laurens Leurs' need mentioned in item 3 above.
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In QuarkXPress for Windows, to view font names in the actual typeface, hold down the Shift key when clicking on the down arrow to the right of the font popup menu in the measurement palette; or when selecting the Style>Font menu. On the Mac, this function is provided by utility programs such as Suitcase, WYSIWYG Menus, etc.
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A quick way to make transparent images in Photoshop (5 or 5.5). Go to the "Export as Transparent Image" option (cunningly hidden in the Help menu) and follow that wizard. It has options for print and web and can automatically save either a TIFF or EPS for print with a clipping paths either from the transparent area in your image or from a selection in the image.
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Having trouble printing from PageMaker 6.52 on a Mac running OS9? Try removing the "In-RIP Trapping.add" plugin file from the RSRC:Plugins folder. Unless you have access to a printer capable of doing In-RIP trapping (i.e. a PS3 imagesetter or one of a very small number of PS3 laserprinters) it may be advisable to get rid of it on either platform. If you ever need it, it can be quickly reinstalled from the CD.
10. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
==========================
A paper and "Smart PDF" solution can be more streamlined than one based on paper and HTML, according to "a tagteam of Acrobat/PDF gurus based in Switzerland" and recently recruited for the new "Practical Smart PDF" column at PlanetPDF: <http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=763>
11. LAST WORD
=============
"In Canada, the Income Tax Act acts as a fatal disincentive to foreigners owning more than 25 per cent of newspapers. Any more than that and advertisers lose their right to claim the cost of advertising as a business expense."
The above came from the Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter. There is no fee for electronic version, sent in MSWord format.
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press
Hastings, Australia.
====================